Forum:Bolthole
Category:Forum ← Return to Index ---- Off-bore Firing Abilities (Spoilers: Mission of Honor +) I was wondering if anyone could explain the 180 degree "off-bore" missile launchers they describe in the books? I'm having a pretty hard time cobbling together how they work, and what they may look like. Do the launchers themselves angle while inside the ship, sort of like a ball and joint socket, or am I missing something? In case this was not answered and for future reference the older ships missiles had to be pointed at the intended target to lock on and track the target. They had a limited cone of about 15 to 30 degrees from the cnterline of the laucher tubes. If they were outside that cone the missiles could not see to lock on or could not correct their course enough to bring the target into their vission. The 180 degree launchers do not angle as far as I can tell, the Grasers and lasers do, but not the launchers. Due more to the fire control improvements the new missiles can be fired and the fire control can dirrect them in any dirrection to attack the target. In effect you can fire a missile out of the port side tube at a target on the starboard side of your ship and the missile will go out and make a sweeping U turn then go back past you and attack the target. A good example is the Nasty Kitty's attack on the 2 SS ships when they fired a double broadside at the destroyer that was basically infront of them. All the missiles made a 90 degree turn and hit the enemy ship. This is simular to the early rockets used in WW2 vs a guided missile used today. The current vertical launch systems on todays warships have the same results. Fired straight up and then turn towards the target. I hope that helps. 22:50, May 17, 2012 (UTC) Ship shapes :Does anyone know where DW got the idea of the hammerhead-shaped starships from? Did he just make it up or is there some real-life scientific concept he drew it from? :-- SaganamiFan 02:00, 4 March 2009 (UTC) ::DW is keen on history. I think "age of sail"-like broadside armament and chase armament should be explained some way in 1900 PD. --dotz 06:09, 4 March 2009 (UTC) :::He definitely based his "wall of battle" on Horatio Hornblower-era "line of battle". Although the ships of the time were not hammerhead shape, the fortresses certainly were (although for a much different reason). The position of the "node ring" though, makes good sense, if you are trying to shield your nodes from bow/stern attacks by energy weapons, as the loss of them would mean an inability to maneuver/run. The flaring of the ends provides a "bulk" shield of armored hull behind which they can be protected, without impeding their ability to form sails. Jabrwock 15:12, 4 March 2009 (UTC) ::::The age of sail ended with steam engine and tower artillery. Impellers will be replaced with "hammerless" Mesan engines (see how distences between ships can be shortened).--dotz 19:49, 6 March 2009 (UTC) :::::The tactics though, didn't really change all that radically. Armored, steam powered warships still sailed in "lines of battle" until the submarine became a major threat (and so formations and escort behavior changed to compensate), and then again when the carrier became the centre of a fleet (and you were less defending against another warships' guns, but instead from first the bombs dropped by planes, then the missiles fired from its planes/ships). Jabrwock 20:06, 6 March 2009 (UTC) ::::::Well, Mesan wall of battle is much more dense. Possibly a lot of implications.--dotz 02:28, 7 March 2009 (UTC) :::::::Well, if it interests anyone at all, I highly recommend someone going and getting some of the technical specifications on the new launch vehicles NASA is ramping up to the production level. Note, the Aries launch vehicle has a hammerhead design itself, and also, take a good look at what our astronauts are going to Mars in, the ship they will be assembling, at least in a small part, looks like a mini-DN. ::::::Manticoran missiles are able to turn after launch and even without uboats there are CLACS (CV counterparts?)--dotz 13:37, 7 March 2009 (UTC) :::::I don't think that Spider Drive will take off that well. For scout ships, the spider drive is ideal, but the inability to interpose a wedge against enemy fire will mean that true warships will be reliant on Impellers for protection as well as propulsion. Not to mention, the lack of a Gravity sump with which the inertial compensator can work severely limits the drives utility against conventionally propelled ships. With the accel a modern Manticoran SD can pull, no Spider Drive ship could hope to evade an Impeller driven force in combat. ::::::So they rely on stealth rather than speed or brute force. Basically, they're not so much the steamships to the sailships of the Honorverse as they are the orriginal U-boats to the surface ships of the Honorverse. That analogy doesn't work perfectly, either, unless they can fire through a wedge, though... As said above by Jabrwock, A large part of the design concept would be about protecting the impeller rings and broadside weapons bays from fire down the Kilt or across the T of the wedge. It also is the most logical way to give maximum surface area for frontal sensors and weapons. :The other Jabrwock comment about Uboats does lead me to think of another possible use for Spider Drive though. Commerce raiding would be an ideal use for these ships provided it was done right. Heavy escorts would make it a bad day for a Spider ships CO, but the stealthy aproach against a merchant grade sensor suit would mean that the prize wouldn't know what was happening until it was well within range for weapons and/or jamming. Not to mention, you stand a much better chance of overhauling a merchie in a spider drive ship than you do outrunning a military vessel in a fleet engagement. : GodricVXR 16:45, April 29, 2010 (UTC) ::An example of large ship with non-impeller drive was Detweiler's yacht (BC, HH12).--dotz 21:40, April 29, 2010 (UTC) Wiki Ship Graphics Many of the ship pictures / graphics, in ship classes section of this wiki, appear to be produced with 3d mesh models? I'm sorry I couldn't see any obvious credits, but I would very much like to contact the artist / 3D modeler if know?. Thanks for any help.--Gearz77Nov 2009 :Edited.. Sorry I found the information. :--Gearz77Nov 2009 Rumored Game So rumor has it that there is a game app in production due to be available on I.phone at some point. Anyone know anything about this? Help? Want to know if its true! -- 151.204.174.172 23:04, December 17, 2009 :I moved this question here, as it was created as an article, which is pretty stupid even for someone who knows little about wikis... don't know of any upcoming game other than ''Honorverse: The Online Game''. -- SaganamiFan 02:12, December 18, 2009 (UTC) Ship classes listed in navy articles I suggest to KIS that sections, remove whole content and place "ship classes templates" there. While such templates have no info about class - I suggest in to enhance them.--dotz 20:51, December 27, 2009 (UTC) Disturbing Calculations I did some calculations. There are 1000 F, G, and K class stars within 100 light-years of Earth, meaning that there would be 1,000,000 within one thousand--the volume of the explored galaxy in the Honorverse. In that volume there are "about a dozen" known sentient species. About 10% of stars in the galaxy are these classes, so if we take a conservative estimate of the number of stars in the galaxy, 100,000,000,000/10*12/1,000,000=120,000. There should be 120,000 sentient species in the Honorverse' Milky Way. Yes, they can "only" go some 40,000 times the speed of light, but still, we should have bumped up against someone more advanced than we are by now. Did the Alphanes kill them all? Or is whatever happened to the Alphanes the fate that awaits all sentient life in the Honorverse? :There are more than a dozen sentient species in the Honorvers, the treecat was the twelth discoverd IIRC DW said that there was over fifty.--John964 18:08, July 29, 2010 (UTC) ::I sure hope the Alphanes don't turn up as another genocidical race... DW has a hang for these... -- SaganamiFan 08:36, August 1, 2010 (UTC) Ship Article Style I am trying to get a consensus on the style for writing the body of the ship articles. I know the style differs from American to the European one, based on the different languages, but I feel that calling a it many times over in the article makes the body seem distant from the header. Also, I would like to at least put the year down as well because it was kind of a hassle to jump back and forth between pages trying to find out when the event in the ship's history took place. Example One: In 1909 PD, the Agamemnon went to the Marsh System and battled against Havenite privateers. The vessel was heavily damaged in the encounter and limped back to the shipyard. (HH12) Example Two (This is the style that I have seen): It went to the Marsh System and it battled against Havenite privateers. It was heavily damaged in the encounter and limped back to the shipyard. (HH12) Example One's style is modeled after the one from Memory Alpha. --Farragut79 02:40, August 10, 2011 (UTC)